Jodi Picoult - Handle with Care

Father Grady winced as the organist started a particularly rousing version of a hymn, and I tucked away my grin. Instead of leaving the poor guy a glass of water last night, I should have mixed him up a hangover remedy.

Behind us, a baby started to wail. As mean-spirited as it was of me, it felt good to have everyone focused on a family other than ours. I heard the furious whispers of the parents deciding who would be the one to take the baby out of the church.

Amelia was sitting on my other side. She elbowed me and mimed for a pen. I reached into my pocket and handed her a ballpoint. Turning over her palm, she drew five tiny dashes and a hangman’s noose. I smiled and traced the letter A on her thigh.

She wrote: _A_A_

M, I wrote with my finger.

Amelia shook her head.

T?

_ATA_

I tried L, P, and R, but no luck. S?

Amelia beamed and scribbled it into the puzzle: SATA_

I laughed out loud, and Charlotte looked down at us, her eyes flashing a warning. Amelia took the pen and filled in the N , then held up her hand so I could see. Just then, loud and clear, you said, “What’s Satan?” and your mother turned bright red, hauled you into her arms, and hurried outside.

A moment later, Amelia and I followed. Charlotte was sitting with you on the steps of the church, holding the baby who’d been screaming during the whole Mass. “What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“Thought we’d be safer when the lightning struck.” I smiled down at the baby, who was stuffing grass into his mouth. “Did we pick up an extra along the way?”

“His mother’s in the bathroom,” Charlotte said. “Amelia, watch your sister and the baby.”

“Do I get paid for it?”

“I cannot believe you’d have the nerve to ask me that after what you just did during Mass.” Charlotte stood up. “Let’s take a walk.”

I fell into step beside her. Charlotte had always smelled of sugar cookies-later I learned that it was vanilla, which she would rub on her wrists and behind her ears, perfume for a pastry chef. It was part of why I loved her. Here’s a news flash for the ladies: for every one of you who thinks we all want a girl like Angelina Jolie, all skinny elbows and angles, the truth is, we’d rather curl up with someone like Charlotte-a woman who’s soft when a guy wraps his arms around her; a woman who might have a smear of flour on her shirt the whole day and not notice or care, not even when she goes out to meet with the PTA; a woman who doesn’t feel like an exotic vacation but is the home we can’t wait to come back to. “You know what?” I said genially, wrapping an arm around her. “Life is great. It’s a gorgeous day, I’m with my family, I’m not sitting in that cave of a church…”

“And I’m sure Father Grady enjoyed hearing Willow’s little outburst, too.”

“Believe me, Father Grady’s got bigger problems on his plate,” I said.

We had crossed the parking lot, heading toward a field overrun with clover. “Sean,” Charlotte said, “I’ve got a confession to make.”

“Maybe you ought to take that inside, then.”

“I went back to the lawyer.”

I stopped walking. “You what ?”

“I met with Marin Gates, about filing a wrongful birth lawsuit.”

“Jesus Christ, Charlotte-”

“Sean!” She threw a glance toward the church.

“How could you do that? Just go behind my back like my opinion doesn’t matter?”

She folded her arms. “What about my opinion? Doesn’t that matter to you ?”

“Of course it does-but some bloodsucking lawyer’s opinion, I don’t give a shit about. Don’t you see what they’re doing? They want money, pure and simple. They don’t give a damn about you or me or Willow; they don’t care who’s screwed during the process. We’re just a means to an end.” I took a step closer to her. “So Willow’s got some problems-who doesn’t? There’s kids with ADHD and kids who sneak out at night to smoke and drink and kids who get beat up at school for liking math-you don’t see those parents trying to blame someone else so they can get cash.”

“How come you were perfectly willing to sue Disney World and half of the public service system in Florida for cash? What’s different here?”

I jerked my chin up. “They played us for fools.”

“What if the doctors did, too?” Charlotte argued. “What if Piper made a mistake?”

“Then she made a mistake!” I shrugged. “Would it have changed the outcome? If you’d known about all the breaks, all the trips to the ER, all we’d have to do for Willow, would you have wanted her any less?”

She opened her mouth, and then resolutely clamped it shut.

That scared the hell out of me.

“So what if she winds up in a lot of casts?” I said, reaching for Charlotte’s hand. “She also knows the name of every bone in the freaking body and she hates the color yellow and she told me last night she wants to be a beekeeper when she grows up. She’s our little girl, Char lotte. We don’t need help. We’ve handled this for five years; we’ll keep handling it ourselves.”

Charlotte drew away from me. “Where’s the we , Sean? You go off to work. You go out with the guys for poker night. You make it sound like you’re with Willow twenty-four/seven, but you have no idea what that’s like.”

“Then we’ll get a visiting nurse. An aide…”

“And we’ll pay her with what?” Charlotte snapped. “Come to think of it, how are we going to afford a new car big enough to carry Willow’s chair and walker and crutches, since ours is going on two hundred thousand miles? How are we going to pay off her surgeries, the parts insurance won’t cover? How are we going to make sure her house has a handicapped ramp and a kitchen sink low enough for a wheelchair?”

“Are you saying I can’t provide for my own kid?” I said, my voice escalating.

Suddenly, all the bluster went out of Charlotte. “Oh, Sean. You’re the best father. But…you’re not a mother.”

There was a shriek, and-instinct kicking in-both Charlotte and I sprinted across the parking lot, expecting to find Willow twisted on the pavement with a bone breaking through her skin. Instead, Amelia was holding the crying baby at arm’s length, a stain streaking the front of her shirt. “It barfed on me!” she wailed.

The baby’s mother came hurrying out of the church. “I’m so sorry,” she said, to us, to Amelia, as Willow sat on the ground, laughing at her sister’s bad luck. “I think he might be coming down with something…”

Charlotte stepped forward and took the baby from Amelia. “Maybe a virus,” she said. “Don’t worry. These things happen.”

She stood back as the woman gave a wad of Baby Wipes to Amelia to clean herself off. “This conversation is over,” I murmured to Charlotte. “Period.”

Charlotte bounced the baby in her arms. “Sure, Sean,” she said, too easily. “Whatever you say.”

By six o’clock that night, Charlotte had caught whatever the baby had, and was sick as a dog. Vomiting like crazy, she’d sequestered herself in the bathroom. I was supposed to work the night shift, but it was blatantly clear that wasn’t going to happen. “Amelia needs help with her science homework,” Charlotte murmured, patting her face with a damp towel. “And the girls need dinner…”

“I’ll take care of it,” I said. “What else do you need?”

“To die?” Charlotte moaned, and she shoved me out of the way to kneel in front of the toilet again.

I backed out of the bathroom, closing the door behind me. Downstairs, you were sitting on the living room couch eating a banana. “You’re gonna spoil your appetite,” I said.